Developer information

Description

BrainTrain is an application that develops attention and improves your ability to focus. Why should you play it? It is a known fact, that doing well at common ‘intellectual’ games such as chess, does not help you solve other, unrelated problems. Practicing chess will make you better at, well, playing chess, but it won’t help you do better at, say, a debate. In other words – chess skills do not translate into fluid intelligence. Scientists were long searching for brain exercises that would conclusively demonstrate general improvements in human’s cognitive ability. Recent research revealed that exercising your working memory actually increases fluid intelligence. This is fantastic news because scientists previously thought that intelligence was determined at birth, and there was nothing you could do about it. A study led by Dr. Susanne M. Jaeggi gave short term memory training to a group of volunteers and then tested them. Training for as little as eight days led to considerable gains, with those training over a longer period making the most improvement. It has also been shown that the most effective way to stimulate areas of brain responsible for short term memory is to practice retention/disposal technique where a new piece of information is memorized, while an old one is being disposed of. BrainTrain is designed to force your brain do ordered retention and disposal of small pieces of information (single digit numbers). Practice – and see the difference it makes in your life over time!

How to play A number from 0-9 is printed on the screen – remember it, then, when another one appears - enter the number that came immediately before it, while remembering the new number. That’s it – you keep memorizing a new numbers, and disposing of old ones. If enough of your entries are correct – you advance to the next level – that is, now you will have to recall a number that came 2 positions before, etc. The question mark indicates the position to recall. A score is kept to tell you how well you progress. Practice makes it perfect!

Recent changes:Version 2.1 comes with Facebook integration, multiple game difficulties and styles. It also has an improved UI.

BrainTrain is an application that develops attention and improves your ability to focus. Why should you play it? It is a known fact, that doing well at common ‘intellectual’ games such as chess, does not help you solve other, unrelated problems. Practicing chess will make you better at, well, playing chess, but it won’t help you do better at, say, a debate. In other words – chess skills do not translate into fluid intelligence. Scientists were long searching for brain exercises that would conclusively demonstrate general improvements in human’s cognitive ability. Recent research revealed that exercising your working memory actually increases fluid intelligence. This is fantastic news because scientists previously thought that intelligence was determined at birth, and there was nothing you could do about it. A study led by Dr. Susanne M. Jaeggi gave short term memory training to a group of volunteers and then tested them. Training for as little as eight days led to considerable gains, with those training over a longer period making the most improvement. It has also been shown that the most effective way to stimulate areas of brain responsible for short term memory is to practice retention/disposal technique where a new piece of information is memorized, while an old one is being disposed of. BrainTrain is designed to force your brain do ordered retention and disposal of small pieces of information (single digit numbers). Practice – and see the difference it makes in your life over time!

How to play A number from 0-9 is printed on the screen – remember it, then, when another one appears - enter the number that came immediately before it, while remembering the new number. That’s it – you keep memorizing a new numbers, and disposing of old ones. If enough of your entries are correct – you advance to the next level – that is, now you will have to recall a number that came 2 positions before, etc. The question mark indicates the position to recall. A score is kept to tell you how well you progress. Practice makes it perfect!